Branching Points
by the.eye.does.not.SEE
Summary: Jane has a surprising confession for her psychiatrist.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N** : Sadly, I don't think we'll ever get a scene with Borden about this, though I think it's _highly_ necessary, considering Jane's f'ed up state of mind, so here goes my stab at it. Fingers crossed I do the good doc some justice. :)

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Jane was quiet during their usual Friday meeting. This wasn't strange—or at least, it hadn't been strange since these past few weeks. Borden sat silently across form her, patiently waiting until she broached whatever topic she wanted to talk about. Sometimes it took nearly half the session to get there. Sometimes only a couple minutes. He surveyed her and wondered which it would be today.

She looked more distant than usual, he thought. Caught up in something he could not begin to guess at—though, to be honest, there was little about Jane he could begin to guess at. Even months after her emergence from that bag in Times Square, he still didn't feel like he had anything close to a handle on her. More than once, he'd thought about conferring with Special Agent Weller on the matter of their somewhat-joint charge, but he'd shied away in the end. Weller wasn't the type to want to talk about his own mental health; Borden doubted he'd want to talk about Jane's. He was protective of her in a manner so complete that it refused collaboration.

Borden watched Jane as she fiddled with a loose thread on the sleeve of her black turtleneck. He wondered if that was what this distraction was about, perhaps—had something happened between them, her and Weller? Borden wouldn't be surprised. He knew they were close, and that they'd only grown closer over the past few months, though Jane hadn't talked about him in session for weeks now. Maybe something had happened a few weeks ago, he thought. And perhaps it had happened again this week.

He kept his thoughts to himself, though. He knew Jane was the type that needed to figure things out on her own before going to others. She did not need, nor did she want, to be prodded. He left her with her silence until nearly fifteen minutes had elapsed. Then he pressed gently:

"How are you feeling? You almost died the other day."

She nodded slowly, silently, as if he had made a banal comment about the weather. Though, Borden supposed, watching her, risking her life was not exactly new. Perhaps such a thing was trivial to her, at this point, given what she had seen, given her skillset.

"Is this about Agent Weller?" Borden pressed quietly, half heading towards another topic. He knew the agent had almost died the other day, too—had come closer than Jane, even, with the sarin gas. If her silence was about that, or something else concerning the agent…

"Nothing's going on with Kurt and I," she answered quietly, reading his insinuations. She kept her eyes trained on the floor beneath them. Borden watched her eyes dart back and forth, tracing the pattern weaved into the carpet. He wanted very badly to ask her to look at him.

"It's about something else, then," he surmised gently.

He watched her nod slowly, heavily. As if her head were made of lead, half-tipping off a mountaintop.

It was quiet for a second, two.

Then, as if commenting on the day of the week, she said, "I had sex last night."

For a second, Borden wasn't sure he heard her right. He blinked, stared, repeated the words in his head… Despite himself, he felt his eyebrows draw together in confusion. Certainly she wasn't telling the truth. Certainly she was confused. Certainly—

"It was good," she continued quietly, as if he had asked. She did not take her eyes off the rug, though her pupils had stopped tracing the patterns before her. "I mean, I don't really have anything to compare it against, but it…" He watched her chest as she drew in a breath, and let it go. "It felt good. It was nice, I…" She looked up finally, meeting his eyes. She looked almost apologetic. "I don't really know what to say about it," she confessed quietly.

It took Borden a moment to come back to himself, to recover.

"Well—that's all right," he hurried to say, pushing all the questions popping up in his brain out of the way so he could focus on her, and her well-being first. "You don't need to know what to say. This was certainly a new experience for you. It's understandable if you're speechless."

She murmured something that he couldn't quite hear.

He leaned forward, prompting her politely, "Sorry, I didn't catch that…?"

Jane kept her eyes on the floor, but she did not ignore his question. "I said, it didn't feel like a new experience. It felt…" She searched for the right word, and he let her, privately glad they both had a moment to think.

While she stared at the floor and thought, he stared at her and tried not to gape. He didn't know where to begin: the fact that she was having sex despite them never having touched on it—at least not medically, physically; the fact that it had apparently been a pleasurable experience for her, though clearly left her confused and pensive; or the fact that she'd had sex with her boss, which was not exactly outlawed, but certainly very frowned upon.

Borden grimaced at the last thought. Even though he'd seen this escalation from friendship to romance coming for months, the confession that something serious had finally happened Jane and Agent Weller was not a comfort. He did not look forward to discussing the protocol of Internal Affairs with her, did not look forward to speaking with Assistant Director Mayfair on this topic, when she eventually solicited his advice. He also did not look forward to this current conversation with Jane, no matter how curious he was. Not five minutes earlier, she'd said nothing was going on between her and her superior, and just a moment ago she'd admitted to having sex with him. Borden closed his eyes, and swallowed the sigh he wished so badly to release. Truly, he had never met in such a convoluted workplace since coming to work on Jane's team. If it wasn't Jane sleeping with her boss, it was Agent Reade sleeping with his boss's sister; if it wasn't intrigue of a sexual nature, it was intrigue of a criminal nature. He frowned at the thought—he should check up on Zapata soon, and make sure she was sticking to the straight and narrow.

"It felt like a memory," Jane said, breaking the silence finally, and Borden's mind reversed, trying to remember what they were talking about. Her having sex with Agent Weller, of course. The night before. It had been good, she'd said. It hadn't felt like a new experience…

"Did it remind you of your dream?" he asked, doing his best to keep his voice as calm as he knew his mind should be. "The first one you had, the—"

"I know which one," Jane interrupted quietly. She hesitated for a long minute. Then she said, "It more than reminded me of that."

Borden cocked his head to the side at that, curious. They had briefly discussed the symbolism in that dream, the meaning of the tree tattoo on her dream-lover's arm. It represented Weller, obviously, they had both come to that conclusion quickly. "What do you mean," Borden asked slowly, "that it more than reminded you?"

"It, um…" Jane chewed on her lip a moment. Her pale green eyes darted to Borden's, and then away again. "It wasn't just a reminder, it was… It was a re-enactment."

"A re-enactment. Hm." Borden sat back in his chair at that, considering her language. Strange words, certainly, to describe a hazy dream and a very real-life scenario. But if it was how she was making sense of things…

"How did this re-enactment compare?" he asked finally. "How did it match up against the real thing, against the dream?"

Jane looked at him strangely, as if he were asking questions that she could not fathom. He inclined his head towards her, instructing her to answer, even if she didn't have an answer she was sure of. Any answer was better than silence; they'd ben over that.

"Well…" She chewed on her lower lip a moment. "It wasn't all that different. I mean, it was the same person, but a different time, a different setting, a different… different _me_ …" She blew out a breath. "But it all _felt_ the same. I felt… I felt like I'd done it all before, you know? Like—what's the word?—déjà vu?"

Borden nodded; this was to be expected, especially with someone like Jane. With so little information in her mind, it made sense that she'd gravitate towards her dreams, and solidify them into near-memories, struggling to find some truth about herself anywhere she could.

But she needed to be reminded that dreams were different than reality, and that if she truly wanted to learn who she was, she could not substitute one for another.

However, there was no need, right now, to lecture her on semantics. They had more important things to discuss. First on the list:

"May I ask if you used protection? As your doctor," he added, when she blinked over at him, clearly taken aback.

Her face pinked a bit at the intrusion, but she nodded nonetheless. "Yes," she answered quietly, looking down at the floor again. "We did."

Borden nodded to that, grateful at least that she—or perhaps Weller—had briefly had some sense before losing it all. "That's good, Jane," he murmured.

He waited for her to say more, to expand on whatever was plaguing her, but she remained silent. He supposed he shouldn't be surprised. No doubt her mind was in turmoil—not only because of having sex for the first time she could remember, but because it had been, with all people, her boss here at the Bureau. Borden pushed the thought away, reminding himself not to judge. It didn't matter who she slept with, merely that she had.

"Would you like to talk about it?" Borden questioned quietly. When Jane's head shot up, worried, he added quickly, "I'm not saying I need all the details. But if there's anything in particular you'd like to discuss…" He spread his hands, as if to say no topic as off-limits. "You are in my confidence as I am in yours," he reminded her. "Nothing I hear leaves this room, nothing you say passes from my lips."

Jane nodded to that, but didn't look much relieved.

Borden frowned, not surprised, but still, not pleased. He was hoping he wouldn't have to come right out and say it—he was hoping he and Jane were on level ground at this point—but whatever made her more comfortable…

"I won't go running to Assistant Director Mayfair, Jane," Borden told her. "My job isn't to tattletale on every intra-department romance I witness unfolding. If it were—" He shook his head with a quiet laugh. "—well, suffice to say, I wouldn't have any clients left, if it were my job." He meant for her to smile, but she only stared. He sighed, "Jane, I am simply here as an ear for you, and to offer advice if you request it. I won't go reporting you to Mayfair, I won't go asking Agent Weller to corroborate your story. I'm—"

"Why would you go Kurt?" Jane interrupted. Borden frowned, not understanding where she was coming from, but before he could ask, her eyes went wide, and her face blanched: "No! No, I didn't have sex with Kurt, no!"

Borden shifted in his seat, his eyebrows drawing together in confusion. "What do you mean?" he asked. "If it wasn't Agent Weller, then who…?"

He didn't bother finishing the sentence. He simply waited, confused and overwhelmed. Perhaps he knew some of what Jane felt, he thought in retrospect.

She was quiet for a long time. Finally, when he was just starting to sit back, and think of another line of questioning to leave her be, she said, "His name's Oscar."

Borden thought on that, striving for recognition. Striving to remember any man he'd ever met with that name.

"He…"

Borden looked up at the sound of Jane's voice, only to watch her fall silent. She closed her eyes. He watched her lips tremble as the seconds ticked by: one, two, three… ten, eleven, twelve…

"He has a tattoo on his right arm," she whispered finally, not opening her eyes. "A tattoo of a tall tree with deep roots."

She didn't have to say anything more.

For at least a full minute, Borden sat there, searching for words. Searching for a plausible explanation. Searching for _anything…_

"The man from your dream?" Borden finally said. He could not contain his shock, nor his excitement. "You mean he's—he's _real_?"

Jane nodded. "He… found me the other day—"

" _Found_ you?" Borden cut in, more harshly than he'd intended. "What do you mean, _found_ you? It's been months since your picture was released to the media! Why hasn't he stepped forward before—especially if he already knew where you were?"

Jane bit the inside of her cheek, her eyes falling to the floor. "He was—away."

It was a bad lie.

He knew it.

She knew it.

But there were more important things to discuss right now, more important things to be put right. So Borden backed off, and adjusted himself in his seat. He was quiet a moment, giving them both a second to cool off.

Then he asked gently, "Would you like to talk some more about what happened last night?"

She looked so grateful he feared she might cry. For a second, he was genuinely worried she would. "Yes," she whispered, her voice almost hushed in its grave appreciation. "Please, I have no one else to talk to."

He offered her a small smile, as if to say, _That's why I'm here._

"Talk to me, then," he offered.

And when their session ran long that day, he didn't mention the time. He didn't send her back to the team. He sat and listened as long as she needed, and offered advice and assurances when he could. Though she had friends, and she had people that cared about her—people that would die for her–Borden knew she was utterly alone in this moment, at this junction. He was more than happy to serve as whatever she needed: psychiatrist, doctor, friend, sounding board. He hadn't felt so useful in months.

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 **A/N** : Thank you so much for reading! I would so, so love to hear your thoughts! I may write more if anyone's interested/if inspiration strikes me, so let me know how it went over. :)


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

 **A/N** : Thank you very much to everyone who gave me feedback on the first chapter. Reviews, whether positive or negative, are what keep me writing, so thank you for leaving your thoughts. Please enjoy this chapter. :)

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"It was so strange. And _not_ strange, somehow. It—" Jane sighed shortly, lifting a hand to rub the side of her forehead. "I don't know how to explain it," she said again, the same thing she'd been saying for the past five minutes, as she broke in and out of explanations of the previous night. "I'm trying, but..."

She looked up, met her psychiatrist's eyes. Her gaze faltered a moment at the sight of him, and grew tortured.

"God, you're even here to listen to me, you're _paid_ to listen to me, and still I can't get the words out to let you listen!" She laughed without humor, shaking her head. "I guess it's good that I have no one else to talk to—I can't even figure out what to say."

"Well, it's complicated, Jane," Borden reminded her gently. "It's understandable if you can't find the words right now. You've... Well, I imagine this has been another shock to your system, not just sexually, but emotionally as well, meeting this man from your past, finding him in your present..." He trailed off, swallowing all the questions he had. There was so much he wanted to know, so much he wanted Jane to explain to him about what had happened last night, and who that man was, and where he had come from, and why he head chosen to appear now. But she was already agonized enough about not being able to explain her experiences properly; he didn't want to add to that simply to sate his own curiosity.

So instead, he simply requested, "Tell me one thing you remember."

Jane lifted her head, quizzical.

"Just one thing," Borden repeated. Then he explained, "I see that it's hard for you to synthesize the whole experience into words, so just start with one thing to get yourself going, to break the whole night down into moments that are easier to digest. Begin with one thing. It can be simple, trivial, like... What he was wearing when you two met? Or, what the time of day; what you were doing before he showed up? What did you do after? Anything, tell me anything. Simple as can be."

Borden paused, waiting. He watched as Jane thought, watched as she struggled to sift through all the memories clamoring for attention to pinpoint one small thing to start with. Finally, she spoke.

"He told me last night that he still loves me."

Borden had to close his eyes so he wouldn't sigh aloud. That was not what he had meant by "simple." It was certainly not what he'd meant by "trivial."

But, he supposed, even something serious and complicated to go on was better than nothing to go on. At least she had managed to string a full sentence together.

"And you said...?" he prompted.

Jane's eyes widened at the implication. "Nothing! I said _nothing_ , I don't—" She broke off suddenly, before the words could escape, as if she were self-conscious of admitting that she didn't feel the same way. Though, perhaps, after the intensity of the previous night, Borden supposed she would have reason to feel self-conscious about such a thing; perhaps she'd been _made_ to feel self-conscious, even.

Concerned, Borden folded his hands, and met her eye. "Did he ask you to say it back?"

Jane shook her head. "No. No, he never asked. It wasn't like that; he wasn't waiting for me to say something in return. It was more like... More like he couldn't keep it in. And after he said it once, he couldn't stop saying it. He kept repeating it, over and over again," she whispered, her cheeks coloring a little as she recalled what Borden knew must've been physically intimate moments. "I don't even know if he even knew he was saying it aloud," Jane continued after a moment, her eyes falling. "He was right in front of me, he was looking at me, but... But it was almost like his head was somewhere else."

Borden absorbed this, and took it to its natural conclusion: "Maybe even _with_ someone else, perhaps?"

"I...don't know," Jane admitted slowly, chewing on her lip in a way that told Borden she had thought of this angle, too, but had not yet managed to rule it in or out. "He... He called me Jane, during, so I feel like he knew it was me he was with, and not—whoever I was before. He knew I was Jane."

"How'd that feel? To hear him call you Jane?"

" _Good_ ," Jane confessed in a rush, pitching forward a bit in relief, as if she'd surprised herself with the immediacy of her answer, or the truth of it. Borden caught a flash of happiness across her face when she smiled briefly. "It felt really good, I..." She faltered a moment, her face falling, and then settled herself. "It was nice," she continued a second later, composed, "to have him recognize me for me. Even if he was thinking about her—who I was before—I... I was still a part of what was happening. It was _me_ with him, not her. Me."

Borden appraised her for a moment, weighing options, paths. Finally, he asked, "Would you mind if I made a small judgment?"

Jane blinked at the request, not sure what he was asking, not sure what it entailed.

"You're of course more than free to reject it, and tell me I'm wrong," Borden continued. "But I would like to make a comment on what you just said."

Jane stared at him for a couple of seconds, her chin pushing out a bit. "Well," she said finally, "isn't that your job? To comment on things I say?"

Borden inclined his head to agree that this was true.

"Go ahead, then," she said, crossing one leg over the other. "Make your comment."

Borden waited a moment, testing the room, the air. He could feel Jane tensing across from him, could feel her steeling her skin against what he might say. And despite how the words might come across, he did not mean them as a poor judgment—not as an insult, not to cause offense. He simply wanted to speak on things as he saw them, and have her either agree or set him right. After all these months together, he hoped they trusted each other enough to meet on level ground here.

"You sound possessive of him, of your experience together. 'It was me with him, not her,' you said." Borden propped either elbow up on the armrests of his chair, and bent forward, to see her better. "Is that accurate, is that how you feel? Do you feel some sort of claim on him?"

"Well, he's my—I mean, he _was_ —" Jane broke off, swallowing whatever words might follow. After a breath, she said, "We were going to be married."

Even those words, Borden noted, sounded defensive. Like she was trying to justify her actions, or what feelings had been behind them.

"But you didn't get married," he pointed out gently.

"No. We didn't."

He wondered if she was sad about that. Or relieved. He couldn't tell from the look on her face, but saw no point in asking her—the possibility was irrelevant, at this point. They weren't married, they hadn't been married, and he doubted, with her memory loss, that they ever would be.

Then again, he hadn't expected her to come into his office today and admit that she'd had sex the previous night. So perhaps anything was possible, when it came to this nameless woman and all that she was capable of.

"Does he still have the ring you gave back, do you know?" Borden asked suddenly, thinking back on all Jane had told him about this man that had suddenly become real. A number of her stories had focused on a ring—wearing it, holding it, returning it. He wondered if the ring had been as important to the man who'd given it to her as it seemed to be to her in her hazy memories. "The ring you saw in your dreams—or, memories, I suppose—has he kept it, all these months, or years?" He wanted, too, to ask how long she'd been gone, but he didn't want to inundate her with questions. That was other people's job.

"He has it," Jane nodded. There was a brief moment of silence, and then: "He wears it, actually," Jane whispered, and Borden was glad she was looking down at her hands, for he was sure his reaction was physical. He could feel his body stilling, freezing into stone.

"Wears it?" he repeated dumbly, not sure what she meant.

Jane nodded without looking up. "On a chain around his neck. He has the ring there; he's kept it there since I went." She paused a moment, pressing her lips together, as if to keep something to herself. Then she seemed to break, and said, "He has his dog tags and mine on the chain, too, with the ring. He—well, he couldn't exactly help it, when we were—he showed them to me. I saw them."

Borden was not surprised by this mention of identification tags. They had talked briefly about her memories of military service, though the flashes she had recalled had been too small to amount to anything. They knew she had been Army, and that was about it. Now, however...

"So you know your real name, then," Borden surmised. "If you saw the tags."

Jane nodded. "I do," she confirmed softly. She did not look up.

"And it isn't Jane."

"No, it's not."

Borden shifted in his seat. It took much of his willpower not to reach for his pen, his journal, to jot this all down. But he was worried that might interrupt things, might make Jane self-conscious or paranoid. So he pushed the urge away, and focused on the important question at hand.

"Is it Taylor? Is that your real name?"

She was quiet for what felt like minutes, but must've only been seconds. Split-seconds.

"No," she whispered, and he could hear her voice break. But he could also see a flicker of a smile, so very brief, like a flash of lightning across her face, but the afterimage remained. Still, he could not tell: if she was heartbroken, or relieved at this turn of events. He knew, at the start of her new life, that she had wanted to be Taylor, that she had wanted to have a family, a connection to Special Agent Weller and her past. But over the past few months, the pressure of living up to such an identity, such a past, had been tearing at her. She had not felt like Taylor, and not feeling like her had only made her feel all the more guilty, all the more lost.

Remembering all those painful sessions, Borden did not press her for her true identity now. He knew she would share if she wanted to, when she was ready. Already, she had shared so much. She had been so open with him, so much more forthcoming than she'd been in weeks, and Borden felt the odd urge to thank her. He wanted to stand up and shake her hand, and say, _Thank you for working with me towards this._

It only took a moment for him to realize the error of his elation. Its cause did not originate with Jane, but rather the man that she'd discovered—or re-discovered—the previous night. Borden kept his eyes on her, but his mind shifted focus. It was truly the dream-man that he should thank, this Oscar from her past and now present. Clearly he had paved the way for these revelations, he had brought them to the fore, into the light.

For better or for worse.

Borden stared at Jane across from him, and wondered if this Oscar knew what she was saying now, and whom she was saying it to. Did he know she saw a psychiatrist, or that she worked with the FBI? If he had dog tags, that meant he was a soldier of some sort—was he still employed, or had he left the service? Had he been Army lie her?

Did he know about the tattoos, the stories behind them? The crimes?

When they'd made love, had he known all her secrets and refused to tell? Or had he whispered other things to her, along with the frantic _I love you_ s?

Or was he clueless; had he truly only _found her_ , as Jane had said earlier?

That had been a lie, Borden knew. But he wondered if it had a kernel of truth. Every lie did, or so people liked to say.

"Last night..." Borden cleared his throat, and watched as Jane's head jerked up to meet his. He met her gaze and held it. "That wasn't the first time you met him, was it? Oscar? You've known about him for some time now."

He watched Jane's mouth tighten, frightened, at his assumptions. They were true, he knew. Well, they had to be—no matter what memories she had of that dream-man, Borden doubted she'd jump into bed with him on the first meeting. Only two questions remained, then.

"How long have you known about him? How long has he known about _you_?"

"It's... been a while," Jane answered slowly, staring in her lap, trying to avoid—as Borden now knew she'd been doing for weeks or months—any responsibility. "I've known about him for a while, and he's..." She let out a breath. "I don't know how long he's known about me. Since before the tattoos, before the drugs and the memory wipe, obviously." She looked down at her arms, staring at the dark sleeves there as if she could see through them, could see the permanent markings on her skin even when it was covered. "He... He was not surprised to see me like this, when we first met."

"Do you think he had some part in this, then? Tattooing you and erasing your memory?"

"He knew of it," Jane answered. "But no, he didn't orchestrate it. He kind of..." She spent a few seconds, searching for the right phrasing. "He kind of went along for the ride, if that makes sense. He didn't see another choice. He wanted to stay with me, any way he could, and—"

"And you believe all that, do you? You believe he had nothing to do with it all?"

"He had proof," Jane replied, and there was a bite in her voice Borden wasn't sure was directed at him, for doubting, or herself, for doing the same—or for believing. "He made it clear that... that all this," she gestured at herself, "was not his idea. Not his plan. He didn't want—He would've much rather I just gave it all up, and stayed with him instead."

"Then it was a conscious choice," Borden whispered, the realization coming to him too quick to think better of speaking aloud. "All this: the tattoos, the puzzles, the unveiling of the crimes. You knew about it all beforehand." His voice rose. "You mean— _you decided to—?_ "

Jane was on her feet before Borden could say anything else, and he rose, too, starting after her as she rushed to the door. He called out her name, once, but she did not stop. It was only when she had her hand on the door that she hesitated.

"Please," he heard her whisper. "Don't go to the team with this. _Please_."

Borden stood, staring, mouth open. He was trying to wrap his head around one truth, and here she was shoving another in his face: he had a duty to her, as her psychiatrist and doctor, yes, but he had another duty, to the FBI. He started to speak, only to realize he didn't know what to say. There were strict guidelines for when and how a psychiatrist could breach the code of confidentiality he had with his patient. Threats of harm to others, threats of self-harm; he was allowed to inform family members, colleagues. For the patient's safety.

But in this case, he didn't know who he was looking out for. He didn't know who might be harmed by this information. Given how many people had died already as a result of her tattoos being decoded... And given how many people had been saved...

Jane had turned. He could see tears in her wide eyes.

"Please, Dr. Borden," she whispered. Her voice scratched on the way out. It would've made him flinch, if he weren't already so overloaded. He had never seen her cry before, not once, despite all she'd been through. "Please, I'm begging you, don't go to them. They'll—They'll kick me out, or they'll lock me up! They'll never look at me again, never trust me—"

"You don't know that," Borden cut in, thinking of every instance in which Special Agent Weller had been the only one to trust her, despite odds stacked against her. He had never once wavered in his belief in her.

"Kind of you to say," Jane whispered, a sad smile on her face as she followed his train of thought. "But we all know where his allegiances lie first."

Borden stared at her, silently debating whether she was correct. He had seen, sometimes with his very own eyes, just how much Special Agent Weller was willing to give for this tattooed woman he'd met mere months ago. He would risk his life, his career... Other things, too, given the way Borden had noticed his eyes lingering on her as of late.

But a betrayal like this...

Well, Borden had to admit Jane was right, in being wary of his devotion. He might have feelings for her, might have a connection with her, but a criminal was a criminal.

If that's what Jane was.

Borden still didn't even know, at this point, what it meant that she had done all this—tattooed herself, erased her memory, infiltrated the government to expose theirs and others' secrets. Did it make her a master criminal? Or a master whistleblower? Were they the same thing, or different?

"I understand your fear, Jane, I do. But really—" He took a few steps towards her, and then stopped, when he noticed her hand tightening around the door handle. "I must implore you to speak with your team—or at least Mayfair," he added quickly, when he saw her shake her head at the idea of confessing to her peers. "Mayfair has a right to be informed of all this—"

"And I have a right to keep my life, what little life I have!" Jane cut in, her voice edging towards desperate even as she tried to sound commanding. "I have a right to—to stay where I am, to say who I am! I mean—" She swallowed, faltered. "Don't I?" she whispered. "Don't I have a right to decide what happens in my own life?"

"Jane, of course you do," Borden replied, reaching out a calming hand into the empty space between them. He didn't dare try to step forward. "Of course you have a right to keep your life, to stay stable in it. But..." He grimaced briefly, and sighed. "The Bureau has a right to know these things about you. They have been trying for months now, to uncover your identity, to uncover the meaning of these tattoos and where they came from." His eyes searched hers, begging for them to reach some kind of agreement besides this stalemate, with each of them on opposite sides of the room. "How would you feel," he asked quietly, "if someone on your team knew all these secrets about you, and refused to tell you?"

"That's different," Jane muttered, looking away, but he'd seen the shock in her eyes, the hurt, at the possibility. "This isn't their life. It's mine. I should get to make the decisions about my life—especially when most of it has already been stolen. I should get to decide who does and doesn't know the truth."

"The truth might concern issues of national or international security," Borden pointed out quietly. "You cannot honestly say that that is none of the Bureau's business."

In lieu of arguing, Jane simply refused to look at him.

Borden waited, but she did not return to the table. Finally, he held up his hands, and retreated back to his chair. He was too restless to sit, though, so he simply stood, bracing his hands on the back of it.

"Jane, I understand where you're coming from, I do. And right now, to be quite blunt, and to ease your mind, I don't have enough to go to the assistant director. For all I know, you're lying to me. Or Oscar's lying to you." He paused, meeting her eye across the room. "Could you really tell?" he asked quietly, his curiosity getting the better of him. "When he told you these things, when he gave you whatever proof he had... Were you sure he was telling God's honest truth?"

Jane nodded, no longer hesitant, no longer teary. Her chin was firm when it dipped down, and came back up. "He didn't lie."

Borden nodded, not pleased, exactly—that it was the truth didn't make this situation any easier—but he was relieved, at least, that they had some solid ground upon which to stand. "Ask him for more information, then," Borden suggested. "Ask him for details, ask him for more proof. Ask—"

"He is not a particularly forthcoming person," Jane interrupted.

"Well, badger him until he is," Borden replied, harsher than he intended.

At the surprise in Jane's face, he hung his head, and squeezed the back of the chair, before stepping away. He circled to the front and sat down, calming himself.

"I'm sorry," he said once his head was clear enough. "I'm not here to order you around; that is not my job. I'm here to listen, and—"

"And I appreciate that," Jane hurried to say, walking quickly back to her seat. He watched, blinking with surprise, as she sat down again. "I appreciate both—that you're willing to listen to me, and that you're trying to give me advice and point me in the right direction. But you have to believe me, things aren't as simple as me just asking him questions, and him giving me the answers. Even if he wanted to tell me..." She shook her head. "It's more complicated than that. He isn't the only one with information, and considering how much he's holding back..." She leveled Borden's gaze with hers. "He hasn't said this, but to be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if he didn't even know the whole story himself. He seems to be here... just to look after me."

"So he monitors you? That's his job, to make sure you're safe?"

 _Is it his job to take you to bed, too?_ Borden thought, but quickly clamped a mental lid on it.

But when Jane met his eyes, Borden knew his thoughts had been clear on his face.

"It wasn't like that," she whispered, and her voice was so wounded, so deeply hurt, that Borden wanted to apologize immediately. But she continued before he could open his mouth, "He said afterwards that...that things like what happened between us, last night, weren't supposed to happen. Couldn't happen. He said he hadn't meant for it to go that far."

"So he regretted it?" That surprised Borden. If either of them were going to regret what had happened the previous night, he had expected it to be Jane.

She shook her head. "No, I... I don't think so," she answered. Her eyes fell closed. "Well, I hope not, at least," she whispered.

Borden sighed quietly, getting his answer from both ends now. Perhaps there _should_ be regrets, but there were not. At least not yet.

He glanced at the clock above Jane's head, realizing that their time was more than used up. Someone would come looking for her soon. He saw no reason to waste their last few moments arguing over whether or not to tell the team, arguing over whether or not to come clean to the FBI. She had not come here for professional guidance; she had a handful of colleagues to go to for that. She had come here for personal guidance, for help, for friendship. Compassion.

 _Please,_ she had said earlier. _I have no one else to talk to._

Borden made a decision, then. Perhaps it was the wrong one. Perhaps it was the right one. Time would tell, and hopefully it would be kind. He met Jane's worried eyes again, and gave her a small smile.

"Let's end on one thing today," he said, "as we started. Nice and simple, huh? How does that sound?"

She nodded, her face breaking open for a moment in relief. He watched her relax in her chair, knowing that, even if this was the wrong decision politically, at least it was the right decision for Jane emotionally. They could figure out the tangled web of intrigue later. But for now:

"Tell me something you liked, about last night. Tell me something that made you happy."

Jane stared. He could see the incredulous _What_? forming on her lips, but he observed her calmly until it went away. He did not want to end this session with fear and insecurity. No matter how necessary those fears were, or how real they were, he wanted her to leave here feeling better than when she came in. These sessions were not meant to be torture; they were not a form of penance. His job was to help her make sense of her mind, her life, her new world. His job was to put her at ease, no matter what—and _especially_ when everyone and everyone and everything else was making her uneasy.

"Surely there was _something_ ," he prodded gently, smiling a little, teasing her as if they were friends.

Jane's mouth flickered into a brief smile at the faux-real camaraderie, before she looked away. He allowed her silence for a time, knowing at some point, she would speak.

"I liked the way he held me," she said finally.

She was being vague, but Borden did not press for an explanation, or a description. He just sat back and let her speak.

"I could tell he loved me," she continued in a whisper. "Even without him saying it, I could feel it in how he touched me and—and how he took care of me. He saw the tattoos, but they weren't ugly to him, or scary. They were like... I don't know. Scars, or something, of our time apart. He touched them like they were... so much nicer than what they were. As if they meant something different than what they mean to all of you here. And I know what happened between us wasn't meant to happen, I know it wasn't—wasn't the best idea, what we did, but... While it was happening, it didn't feel like it was the worst idea, either. It just felt normal. When he held me, I could tell how long he'd waited for that moment, between us. How much he'd thought about it, or dreamed about it—like I had, I suppose. And I could tell, too, that he didn't fully believe it was happening. I think that's why it seemed like his head was somewhere else," Jane explained, circling back to what she'd said earlier in the session. "I think he was trying to reconcile all his memories of what he thought the moment would be like with what it actually _was_ , and..."

"...And I'm sure it was a rather surreal experience for him, as it was for you?" Borden suggested.

Jane nodded, agreeing to this. "Yes. 'Surreal' is a good word for it." She looked down at her hands, and Borden watched, as she pulled at the fingers of her left hand with her right. He could see her thumb and index finger worrying over the ring finger on her left hand. He wondered, privately, if she had worn the ring last night, when she'd gone to bed with her former fiancé. He wondered if it had made her feel closer to him, or further away.

"Do you know if you'll be seeing him again?" Borden asked into the silence between them.

"I don't know," Jane answered quietly, her eyes growing distant as she looked down at the ground. "He didn't..." Her cheeks colored briefly. "We didn't really talk that much last night."

Borden nodded, following along with her distant gaze. Time was gone, he knew, so he bit back the obvious question. After all, he had promised her only one more thing.

Still, the question swirled in his head, unquenchable: _Do you want to see him again?_

Though he did not speak it aloud, he could see the answer there, in the pink of her cheeks, in her far-off gaze, in her preoccupation. And at this juncture, he didn't exactly see the point in making her admit it out loud. There were other truths that were more important to realize. So he let her go, and they promised they'd see one another again on Monday to talk more.

* * *

 **A/N** : Thank you for reading! Please leave some feedback. :)


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